I’ve been saying that all along. More we learn about the family, the more everything feels… just right. Not too busy, not too boring. Not too social, not too anti social. Everything is just right. Goddammit, if they’re with WitSec, I will slit my wrists.”
“Can’t be,” Bobby assured her.
“Why not?” She really didn’t want her case to be part of the witness protection program.
“Because if so, you’d have federal marshals already crawling all over your ass. It’s been forty-eight hours, and the wife’s disappearance is public info. No way they wouldn’t have found you.”
That made her feel better. Except: “What’s left?”
“He did it. Or she did it. But one of them has a new identity. Figure out which one.”
Coming from Bobby, D.D. took news of a probable alias as expert advice. After all, he’d married a woman who’d had at least twelve names, possibly more. Then it hit her.
“Lucky Mr. Smith,” Bobby drawled.
“He’s a cat. Their cat. I never connected the dots. But think about it. The family is Mr. and Mrs. Jones, with their cat, Mr. Smith. It’s an inside joke, dammit! You’re right, they’re mocking us.”
“I vote for Mr. Arctic.”
“Ah shit,” D.D. moaned. “Just my luck. I got a prime suspect who by all appearances is a mild-mannered reporter, with a secret identity. You know who that sounds like, right?”
“I don’t know. Who?”
“Fucking Superman.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When Jason was fourteen years old, his family had gone to the zoo. He’d been too old and cynical for these kinds of outings, but his little sister, Janie, had been madly in love with anything furry, so for Janie’s sake, he’d agreed to the zoo.
He’d do most things for Janie’s sake, a fact his mother exploited zealously.
They’d made the rounds. Eyed sleeping lions, sleeping polar bears, sleeping elephants. Really, Jason thought, how many sleeping animals did one guy need to see? They bypassed the insect exhibit without a word, but ducked into Reptile World. At ten years of age, Janie didn’t really like snakes, but still liked to squeal while looking at snakes, so it made a crazy kind of sense.
Unfortunately, the key exhibit item-the albino Burmese python-was covered up, with a sign saying,
Janie had giggled, thinking that was pretty funny. Jason had shrugged, because it seemed to him that a python would be yet one more sleeping creature, so he fell into step behind his sister as their father led them toward the door. At the last moment, however, Jason had glanced over and realized the cardboard wasn’t fully covering the glass. From this angle, he could peer right in, and Polly wasn’t
His legs had stopped moving on their own. He’d stood there frozen for a full minute, maybe two, unable to look away, as inch by fluffy brown inch, the freshly asphyxiated body disappeared into the snake’s glistening gullet.
He thought at that moment, staring at the dead bunny
Then his father had touched his arm, and he’d followed his dad out the exit into the white-hot blast of Georgia summer.
His father had watched him carefully for the rest of the day. Looking for signs of what? Psychosis? Impending nervous breakdown? Violent outbursts?
It didn’t happen. It never happened. Jason got through each day as he got through the day before, step by painful step, moment by painful moment, a physically scrawny, painfully undersized boy, armed only with his thousand-yard stare.
Until the day he turned eighteen and came into Rita’s inheritance. Had his parents planned him a party? Had Janie bought him a gift?
He’d never know. Because on the morning of Jason’s eighteenth birthday, he’d gone straight to the bank, cashed out two-point-three million dollars, and vanished.
He’d returned from the dead once before. He never planned on hurting his family that badly again.
Sandy was pregnant.
He should do something.
As thoughts went, Sandy’s pregnancy was a curious one. It floated right above him. Something he could state, something he could repeat, and yet the three words refused to sound like English.
Sandy was pregnant.
He should do something.
The police were gone. They had wrapped up their party a little after one A.M. The computer was gone. His iPod, Ree’s Leapster. Some boxes had disappeared from the basement as well, probably cartons of old software. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. He’d signed the evidence logs where they had told him to sign, and none of it had made a bit of difference to him.
He wondered if the baby was his.
He would take Ree and run, he thought idly. There was a thin metal box up in the attic, tucked behind a thick piece of insulation, which contained two pieces of fake ID and approximately twenty-five thousand dollars in large bills. The pile of cash was surprisingly small, the metal lockbox no bigger than a hardcover novel. He knew the police couldn’t have discovered it during their search, because it was the kind of find that would have immediately engendered conversation.
He would climb the stairs to the attic, retrieve the box, slip it into his computer case. He would rouse Ree from her bed, shear her long brown curls, and top them with a red baseball cap. Throw on a pair of denim overalls and a blue polo shirt and she would make an excellent Charlie, traveling alone with her freshly shaved father.
They’d have to sneak out the back to avoid the press. Climb over the fence. He’d find a car a few blocks away and hotwire a ride. The police would expect them to hit South Station, so instead he’d drive them to the Amtrak station on 128. There, he’d park the first stolen car, and help himself to a second. The police would eye all trains going south, because that’s what people did, right? They headed south, maybe into New York, where it was easy for anyone to get lost.
Ergo, he’d drive the second stolen vehicle due north, all the way to Canada. He’d stick “Charlie” in the trunk and don a sports jacket and thick, black-rimmed glasses. Just another businessman crossing the border for Lasik. The border patrol was used to such things.
Then, once he and Ree hit Canada, they would disappear. It was a huge country, lots of land and deep green woods. They could find a small town and start over again. Far away from Max. Far away from the suspicions of the Boston police.
Ree could pick a new name. He’d get a job, maybe at the general store.
They could make it for years. As long as he never got back on a computer.
Sandy was pregnant.
He should do something.
He didn’t know what.
Upon further contemplation, he couldn’t run. Not yet. He needed to save Ree. It would always come down to Ree. But he wanted, he needed, to know what had happened to Sandy. And he wanted, he needed, to know about the baby. He felt that in the past forty-eight hours, fate had taken his legs right out from under him. And now, perversely, it was dangling a carrot.
He might be a father.
Or Sandy really did hate him after all.
